Pastéis de Leite and Marmelada

In 2020 I continued my research into my 16th Century Portuguese cookbook.  I found a fantastic Portuguese language tutor called Joana who has helped me immensely with understanding the basics of the language.  I particularly wanted to start doing my own translation and redactions of the recipes in the O livro de Cozinha da Infanta Dona Maria de Portugal as I had not as yet found an English version that translated the Portuguese language version most like that written in the original book. Some of the versions are in Brazilian Portuguese and others have had the language modernised. Part of my research was towards my class on Pastéis de Leite at the Second Known World Colegio de Iberia. The recording of this class is below and my notes for the class are here.

I decided to continue my work on this recipe for our Baronial Arts and Science Championship where I entered (and won) my Pastéis de Leite along with another recipe from the book called, appropriately Marmelada de dona Joana.  Both recipes were a collaboration between Tutor Joana and myself, we translated them together during my online classes.  She provided the Portuguese language expertise and I the cooking process.  My documentation that went with the class can be found here.

Feast of Favourites at 25th Anniversary of the Barony of Southron Gaard

 I was in charge of the feast for the 25th Anniversary of Southron Gaard.  The concept was a Feast of Favourites where I would cook the food that people in the Barony had enjoyed the most over the years.  I created a Google Form where I asked people to nominate their favourite dishes and any special memories that went with the food.  I also had several verbal suggestions.  People were most excited by lozenge, mushroom pie and variants on cheese pie.  It became obvious that a course of pies was necessary!  The Stewards were keen to do a peacock soteltie, and while it is very difficult to get a peacock, there are plenty of chickens available!  We decided as part of this soteltie to do a gilded chicken as is found in Pleyn Delit.  On the night we added edible glitter to the coating to make it extra gilded!  One of the most popular dessert suggestions was pears in red wine so I made sure we had plenty of pears. I ended up cooking them in the slow cooker which worked nicely.  The full menu for this feast with references can be found here.

Photo of one of the many test cooks for this feast

Baked Mallard

I first made this recipe for Coronation LIV and then again for 25th Anniversary of Southron Gaard.  This is one of those dishes I think longingly about at odd moments!  The combination of duck, leek and verjuice is so delicious.  You can find the period recipe plus my redation and notes here. 

Calontir Challenge

To help me further explore my Portuguese persona I entered some challenges both in my home Barony and further abroad.  One of these was the Calontir Challenge.  One section of this challenge was to do something from the same time and place as your outfit.  I decided that this obvioualy meant food so I cooked a Portuguese and Spanish meal for a Spanish friend of mine.  I used some of the recipes from the collection of Portuguese recipes I covered in my Colegio class and added some 16th century Spanish ones from Nola.  You can read my documentation of that here.

Portuguese chicken with Spanish onions and eggplant

                                                                 Portuguese Custard Tarts

Transylvania

 I cooked a dinner at Golden Flight 2020 (an archery event) which had an Eastern European theme.  Happily my new Medieval Transylvanian recipe book had just arrived and I enjoyed working with the flavour combinations!  I later wrote up my dinner into an article for From the Tower.  

Portugal?!

 You will notice that my previous menus all have Elisabetta Foscari written on them!  During lockdown in 2020 I spent some time considering what I wanted out of the SCA.  I had been considering moving to a Portuguese persona for some time as a way of exploring my mundane heritage but was a bit afraid of taking the plunge!  I decided during lockdown that I should just do it!  And there was Joana!  Here is an article I wrote exploring the process of picking and registering my new name.  This also gave me the chance to explore a whole need culinary culture!  There is one 16th century Portuguese cookbook in existence and I chose to discuss this for the first Colegio de Iberia.  My notes for this are here.  Having done more research into this work since the class I don't feel my presentation is entirely correct but it was a good place to start.  You can view my class below!

Coronation Feast

 The Coronation Feast itself was at the Waipara Adventure Centre.  The menu was also 16th century Tudor and you will note I kept some dishes from Chaneys but also wanted to try a few different things.  I think the stand out for me was the Duck Pie and I have made that several times since.  The Tarte Oute of Lente is another favourite!  I will finally formally write up some of my recipes from that feast at a later date.  I still have a good scar on my arm from the ovens at that event but the food was well received especially the Duck! More positively Baroness Agnes and I were awarded our Rowans!

Tired and slightly crazed Rowan buddies!  

  

Chaney's Manor

 Baroness Agnes and I then had the crazy idea of putting a bid in for Lochac Midwinter Coronation ASLVI (2019).  I am not sure our respective partners were as thrilled about the idea as we were but they soon came round!  We decided we wanted to do a test run of the site we were contemplating and feast ideas so we put together an event called Chaney's Manor.  The premise of this was an evening at a Tudor Manor as we had a beautiful wood panelled hall. The menu fot this can be found here.  The food went down well and we worked out that the site, no matter how pretty was not suitable for a larger event.  The menu was similar, some good ideas but also some that would not work as well for a larger number.  Although sotelties are not my thing I did make a gilded gingerbread tower for this event.  It is sitting in a field of green cream with marchpane and borage flowers.

My first foray into cooking for other people!

 Back in 2012 I entered the Baronial A&S Championship with a food item which was an unusual step for me as previously I had not felt confident in cooking for other people!  The dish was Rampaunt Perre from Pleyn Delit. The whole experience was not nearly as terrifying as I expected and, while it took me another 5 years to get the guts to cook a whole feast, it was one of my first steps on my SCA food journey and I am rather nostalgic about it.  The documentation can be found here.

Plumesye

When I was editor of Cockatrice I was at times scrambing for some content to fill in gaps and started putting together some recipes for this.  One of these was for Plumesye which is a variant on the 14th century Cheriseye which I enjoy making but with more available fruit.  A copy of this article can be found here.

Second Baronial Anniversary Feast

 Having learnt much cooking my first feast at Baronial Anniversary I decided to give it a second go and put all that I had learnt in to practice at Baronial Anniversary ASLII (2018).  This feast however had a Middle Eastern theme.  I love eating Middle Eastern food mundanely and in the SCA so I was very happy to cook this!  I had a great deal of fun in doing so and feel it was a much better feast.  My cooking buddy Vigdis often refers fondly to this particular feast.  My menu can be found here and I also wrote an article with some of my redactions for From the Tower. I managed to get exactly 0 photos of this feast and event however!

My first feast!

 The first feast I ever cooked was for Baronial Anniversary ASLI (2017).  It was (mostly) based on 15th Century Italian recipes taken from both The Medieval Kitchen and Pleyn Delit.  Was it perfect?  Absolutely not!  Did I learn a lot from it?  Absolutely!!  

This truly terrifying photo was taken when I was mercilessly stabbing the lamb and probably reflects my stress level!  The menu for the feast can be found here.